July 5, 2024 • 13 mins
Vanessa Tyler talks with author, journalist and critical thinker Edward Sargent about his strategy for slavery reparations and the inconspicuous history of reparations that exists in the United States.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You can never repay the damage have been done to
black people in America. We need to do this. We
need to get the money. Where's the money.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
More cities are creating these reparations task forces to at
least try and get the money. Reparations is not a
new concept. It's something that all communities are owed if
they have suffered from gross human rights violations. It's not new.
In fact, reparations happen all the time in the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
One thing is to find out how we can become
eligible according to the law for reparations.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
An idea to make us eligible unheard of despite it
being controversial, is it a solution?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Next? On black Land.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
And now as a brown person, you just feel so
invisible where we're from.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Brothers and sisters are welcome you to this joyful jayable.
We celebrate freedom. Where we are, I know someone's it's something.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And where we're going. We the people means all the people.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
The black information that Worth presents Blackland with your host
Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Some say it's too late.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Unfortunately, the opportunity was tragically missed to pay it to
the slaves themselves or their immediate families. But claims like
this time out.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Others speaking to NBC say, how could it be too
late when there are still the residual effects of slavery.
This country owns us.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This generational wealth that was stolen from us. We had
to continue to rebuild every time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
The focus, of course on reparations to blacks. But what
about reparations paid to whites? Edwards Sergeant, author, journalist, and
critical thinker, is gathering information about how reparations are paid
out in this country to everyone else at sergeant welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Vanessa, What is your research discovered so far?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Reparation is not a black thing. It's an American thing.
It's as American as your mother's apple pack. Trillions of
dollars have been given in reparations to millions of people
here in the United States and around the world for
hundreds of years. So what black people are requesting is
nothing out of the note.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You also have a thing about what you talk about
white reparations. What are white reparations?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
White reparations happens when white government officials give money to
whites and other non black individuals. These cash payments are
mostly hidden in playing sight. I think that it's well
understood that this country does take care of its people
in general. But what we're looking at as a team
(02:43):
of people, educators, lawyers, journalists, and my teams that I'm
working with, we're working on a project, a book project
called White Reparations Their Secret Deals Revealed. And the reparations
we're talking about are reparations to individuals that.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Was in favor of reparations. Point to examples that include
that was given money by FEMA from the wicked weather
just flattening parts of the country. Basically individuals getting government
money to make whole what was lost. Still few see
the connection. Polls about reparations for black people with slavery
ancestry is mostly a no. A Pew Research poll from
(03:22):
twenty twenty one finds sixty eight percent against reparations, but
breaking it down by race, eighty percent of white people
are against it and seventy seven percent of Black people
are for it, making it one of the most divisive
issues in our country.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well. As doctor Claude Anderson has said, author of Paronomics,
one of my favorite clients have been an editorial consultant
with him. He has made a big issue, a big
platform that black people are a unique people. We nobody
has experienced well we've experienced on this planet. Okay, So therefore,
(04:02):
we're looking at reparations strictly for the slaves black people
who are descendants of black people. And we come up
with a strategy that overcomes the argument that will there
are no slaves in America anymore. We've overcome that. We
have a strategy to overcome that.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
The strategy, Ed Sergeant has an idea which many may
think is way too out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
First thing to overcome is that argument that we are
not slaves, that there are no slaves here, So we
have to defeat that. That's the number one according to
the research, that's the first thing. Basically that senators, especially
white senators, that's who's really holding up reparations in Congress.
The House of Representatives has already passed legislation to fund
(04:45):
a commission to study reparations. It has not been passed
by the Senate. The Senate is overwhelmingly white. Their argument
more likely than that, more you know, mostly is like, well,
you know, there's no one allowed to give them. The
slaves are all gone, so what are you talking about.
We found a case in where the Congress has changed
(05:07):
the legal status of an individual, a white man from
another country who served in the US Armed Forces, but
he wasn't eligible for reparation's payments paid out to soldiers
because he was not a citizen. You know what happened
about forty years later, after the war was over, they
retroactively called that man, gave him citizenship retroactively. Okay. So
(05:33):
if that can happen, if the legal status of a
human being can be changed in America from a non
citizen to a citizen with the snap of a finger,
as opposed to going through the immigration process, then certain
we have a right to say, well, okay, here's the deal.
This is out of the box. This is going to
shock a lot of people. But the idea is to say, well,
I am my ancestor, okay, and for the purposes of
(05:58):
receiving reparations, I should be treated as an enslaved black person.
You can give me that status for the specific purpose
of giving me reparations. And I have the status of
an enslaved person, so give me the reparations that is
old to my ancestor. I am standing in the gap
legally for my ancestor.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
We know America paid the Japanese due to their World
War II internment, at which time their property was confiscated.
Then President Ronald Reagan said at the time he signed
the bill for the Japanese the year nineteen eighty eight,
Reagan with America's apology, and with it came a twenty
thousand dollars check.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
He had no payment can make up for those lost years.
So what is most important in this bill has less
to do with property than with honor. For here we
admit a wrong, Here we reaffirm our commitmentisignation to equal
justice under the law.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Based in Washington, d C. Where the Council there just
approved money to develop a reparations task force to address
the harms of slavery, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Across the nation, we have task forces in California, Illinois, Chicago,
and as you just mentioned here in Washington, D C.
I'm all for anything that it's going to take to
get reparations for our people. These suggestions and recommendations of
these task forces include judicial legal reform, better schools, healthcare,
(07:35):
a lot of things that are going on that need
to be repaired that black people are suffering, and I'm
all for that. But again, none of those addressed the
key issue that there are no slaves in America today.
That's the point, that's the argument that we must overcome.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
The one city that overcame the obstacles and became the
first to get reparations directly in the hands of black people.
The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, back.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
In twenty nineteen, has stated the City of Evanston and
bart On Histoury of going for a commitment of ten
million dollars over ten years towards local reparations for black Evenstonians.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Here, Evanston city officials brief residents how to apply and
who is eligible.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Each applicant who applies will receive up to twenty five
thousand dollars if you are deemed eligible.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
In the early phase of the program, a small percentage
of black residents got reparations about twenty five thousand dollars
each in the form of cash or funds to buy
a home or fix one up. Resident Ramona Burton tell
CNN she used the money to build her home, equity,
build her wealth.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I had eight windows replaced, a new roof.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
The City of Evanston is facing a lawsuit over the
program by a conservative activist group. But et Sergeant says,
reparations must cover the entire country. Evanston is just one
small city.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh that's great. That's a state by state, locale by
locale movement. We're talking now about a federal piece. We're
talking about the federal government. It was the federal government
that legalized enslavement about people. The federal government. Of course,
it crosses all the country, and that's where the main focus.
My main focus is right here Washington, d C. Of
(09:23):
course I have the benefit of being both local and federal,
so I have relationships with Congress as well as the
local government. So again my focus is on the federal
and I think anything it takes, it's like Malcolm xay,
if by any means necessary, we must be treated like
human beings, full one hundred percent invested human beings and
citizens in this country.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
And how do you think reparations should be paid? Do
you think first of all, it will ever be paid?
And how do you think it should go? In the
form of services or cold hard cash.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Both. We have to be able to repair ourselves. We
have to be able to prepare our people to receive
reparations so that the money will last. So the money
can be properly invested.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
California is one of the states where they really went
in deep. They had a task force that looked at
the issue and for like two years or so, and
then you know, returned like a thousand page reparations task
Force action plan.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
My focus is strictly on how do we overcome that
main argument. And here's the deal. It's not about the opposition,
it's about the offense. We have to ignite black people.
Black people in general are kind of you know, we
have an amorphous understanding of whether we have a right
to reparations, how it should happen. Okay, we need something
(10:46):
that's going to ignite the masses of black people to
clear get a clear understanding. One thing we can just
one thing we can focus on. And again I believe
that one thing is to find out how we can
be I'm eligible according to the law for reparations. See
that's number one. And then once you declare yourself eligible,
(11:07):
then you can talk about how these reparations are going
to come forth. It's like putting the horse before the
car before the horse. If you talk about what kind
of reparations we should get without really first establishing that
we are eligible for it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
What's the action plan for us as listeners?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I appreciate you asking that we are working on an
open public research project. We need all the intellect we
can gather among our people and our allies in terms
of looking at the data that we're putting together. So therefore,
the website, the White Reparationsproject dot com is where people
(11:47):
can come to find out more information to contribute their
input and analysis. Your listeners can also call the telephone number.
It's two one three nine four three eight four four.
Repeat it's two one three ninety four to three three
eight four four, And we can engage directly with people
(12:08):
who are interested in working on this project. And we
have paid positions to help us with the research project.
So we're looking for students who want internships, We're looking
for retired individuals. We have time to look into this.
Of course, we're looking for everybody whoever wants to be
a part of this. Any black person who's really serious
about making this taking their claim and standing in the
(12:28):
place of their ancestors, we can find a way. We're
looking for ways to make sure each individual can make
that claim. We really want to push this argument as
far as we can and we really believe the average
black person will get magnetized by this idea. We already
tested it. People get excited about this, so we want
to keep that excitement building. We're going to make it happen, Vanessa,
and no one can stop us. So we're looking for
(12:50):
all the support we can get.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Excellent Ed Sargent, author and investigative journalist, Keep digging, Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Thank you for the opportunity. We have a great day.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Join me next Friday for a brand new episode of
black Land. Like and subscribe and get it wherever you
get your podcasts.
You can never repay the damage have been done to
black people in America. We need to do this. We
need to get the money. Where's the money.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
More cities are creating these reparations task forces to at
least try and get the money. Reparations is not a
new concept. It's something that all communities are owed if
they have suffered from gross human rights violations. It's not new.
In fact, reparations happen all the time in the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
One thing is to find out how we can become
eligible according to the law for reparations.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
An idea to make us eligible unheard of despite it
being controversial, is it a solution?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Next? On black Land.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
And now as a brown person, you just feel so
invisible where we're from.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Brothers and sisters are welcome you to this joyful jayable.
We celebrate freedom. Where we are, I know someone's it's something.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And where we're going. We the people means all the people.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
The black information that Worth presents Blackland with your host
Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Some say it's too late.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Unfortunately, the opportunity was tragically missed to pay it to
the slaves themselves or their immediate families. But claims like
this time out.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Others speaking to NBC say, how could it be too
late when there are still the residual effects of slavery.
This country owns us.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This generational wealth that was stolen from us. We had
to continue to rebuild every time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
The focus, of course on reparations to blacks. But what
about reparations paid to whites? Edwards Sergeant, author, journalist, and
critical thinker, is gathering information about how reparations are paid
out in this country to everyone else at sergeant welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Vanessa, What is your research discovered so far?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Reparation is not a black thing. It's an American thing.
It's as American as your mother's apple pack. Trillions of
dollars have been given in reparations to millions of people
here in the United States and around the world for
hundreds of years. So what black people are requesting is
nothing out of the note.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You also have a thing about what you talk about
white reparations. What are white reparations?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
White reparations happens when white government officials give money to
whites and other non black individuals. These cash payments are
mostly hidden in playing sight. I think that it's well
understood that this country does take care of its people
in general. But what we're looking at as a team
(02:43):
of people, educators, lawyers, journalists, and my teams that I'm
working with, we're working on a project, a book project
called White Reparations Their Secret Deals Revealed. And the reparations
we're talking about are reparations to individuals that.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Was in favor of reparations. Point to examples that include
that was given money by FEMA from the wicked weather
just flattening parts of the country. Basically individuals getting government
money to make whole what was lost. Still few see
the connection. Polls about reparations for black people with slavery
ancestry is mostly a no. A Pew Research poll from
(03:22):
twenty twenty one finds sixty eight percent against reparations, but
breaking it down by race, eighty percent of white people
are against it and seventy seven percent of Black people
are for it, making it one of the most divisive
issues in our country.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well. As doctor Claude Anderson has said, author of Paronomics,
one of my favorite clients have been an editorial consultant
with him. He has made a big issue, a big
platform that black people are a unique people. We nobody
has experienced well we've experienced on this planet. Okay, So therefore,
(04:02):
we're looking at reparations strictly for the slaves black people
who are descendants of black people. And we come up
with a strategy that overcomes the argument that will there
are no slaves in America anymore. We've overcome that. We
have a strategy to overcome that.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
The strategy, Ed Sergeant has an idea which many may
think is way too out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
First thing to overcome is that argument that we are
not slaves, that there are no slaves here, So we
have to defeat that. That's the number one according to
the research, that's the first thing. Basically that senators, especially
white senators, that's who's really holding up reparations in Congress.
The House of Representatives has already passed legislation to fund
(04:45):
a commission to study reparations. It has not been passed
by the Senate. The Senate is overwhelmingly white. Their argument
more likely than that, more you know, mostly is like, well,
you know, there's no one allowed to give them. The
slaves are all gone, so what are you talking about.
We found a case in where the Congress has changed
(05:07):
the legal status of an individual, a white man from
another country who served in the US Armed Forces, but
he wasn't eligible for reparation's payments paid out to soldiers
because he was not a citizen. You know what happened
about forty years later, after the war was over, they
retroactively called that man, gave him citizenship retroactively. Okay. So
(05:33):
if that can happen, if the legal status of a
human being can be changed in America from a non
citizen to a citizen with the snap of a finger,
as opposed to going through the immigration process, then certain
we have a right to say, well, okay, here's the deal.
This is out of the box. This is going to
shock a lot of people. But the idea is to say, well,
I am my ancestor, okay, and for the purposes of
(05:58):
receiving reparations, I should be treated as an enslaved black person.
You can give me that status for the specific purpose
of giving me reparations. And I have the status of
an enslaved person, so give me the reparations that is
old to my ancestor. I am standing in the gap
legally for my ancestor.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
We know America paid the Japanese due to their World
War II internment, at which time their property was confiscated.
Then President Ronald Reagan said at the time he signed
the bill for the Japanese the year nineteen eighty eight,
Reagan with America's apology, and with it came a twenty
thousand dollars check.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
He had no payment can make up for those lost years.
So what is most important in this bill has less
to do with property than with honor. For here we
admit a wrong, Here we reaffirm our commitmentisignation to equal
justice under the law.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Based in Washington, d C. Where the Council there just
approved money to develop a reparations task force to address
the harms of slavery, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Across the nation, we have task forces in California, Illinois, Chicago,
and as you just mentioned here in Washington, D C.
I'm all for anything that it's going to take to
get reparations for our people. These suggestions and recommendations of
these task forces include judicial legal reform, better schools, healthcare,
(07:35):
a lot of things that are going on that need
to be repaired that black people are suffering, and I'm
all for that. But again, none of those addressed the
key issue that there are no slaves in America today.
That's the point, that's the argument that we must overcome.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
The one city that overcame the obstacles and became the
first to get reparations directly in the hands of black people.
The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, back.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
In twenty nineteen, has stated the City of Evanston and
bart On Histoury of going for a commitment of ten
million dollars over ten years towards local reparations for black Evenstonians.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Here, Evanston city officials brief residents how to apply and
who is eligible.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Each applicant who applies will receive up to twenty five
thousand dollars if you are deemed eligible.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
In the early phase of the program, a small percentage
of black residents got reparations about twenty five thousand dollars
each in the form of cash or funds to buy
a home or fix one up. Resident Ramona Burton tell
CNN she used the money to build her home, equity,
build her wealth.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I had eight windows replaced, a new roof.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
The City of Evanston is facing a lawsuit over the
program by a conservative activist group. But et Sergeant says,
reparations must cover the entire country. Evanston is just one
small city.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh that's great. That's a state by state, locale by
locale movement. We're talking now about a federal piece. We're
talking about the federal government. It was the federal government
that legalized enslavement about people. The federal government. Of course,
it crosses all the country, and that's where the main focus.
My main focus is right here Washington, d C. Of
(09:23):
course I have the benefit of being both local and federal,
so I have relationships with Congress as well as the
local government. So again my focus is on the federal
and I think anything it takes, it's like Malcolm xay,
if by any means necessary, we must be treated like
human beings, full one hundred percent invested human beings and
citizens in this country.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
And how do you think reparations should be paid? Do
you think first of all, it will ever be paid?
And how do you think it should go? In the
form of services or cold hard cash.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Both. We have to be able to repair ourselves. We
have to be able to prepare our people to receive
reparations so that the money will last. So the money
can be properly invested.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
California is one of the states where they really went
in deep. They had a task force that looked at
the issue and for like two years or so, and
then you know, returned like a thousand page reparations task
Force action plan.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
My focus is strictly on how do we overcome that
main argument. And here's the deal. It's not about the opposition,
it's about the offense. We have to ignite black people.
Black people in general are kind of you know, we
have an amorphous understanding of whether we have a right
to reparations, how it should happen. Okay, we need something
(10:46):
that's going to ignite the masses of black people to
clear get a clear understanding. One thing we can just
one thing we can focus on. And again I believe
that one thing is to find out how we can
be I'm eligible according to the law for reparations. See
that's number one. And then once you declare yourself eligible,
(11:07):
then you can talk about how these reparations are going
to come forth. It's like putting the horse before the
car before the horse. If you talk about what kind
of reparations we should get without really first establishing that
we are eligible for it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
What's the action plan for us as listeners?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I appreciate you asking that we are working on an
open public research project. We need all the intellect we
can gather among our people and our allies in terms
of looking at the data that we're putting together. So therefore,
the website, the White Reparationsproject dot com is where people
(11:47):
can come to find out more information to contribute their
input and analysis. Your listeners can also call the telephone number.
It's two one three nine four three eight four four.
Repeat it's two one three ninety four to three three
eight four four, And we can engage directly with people
(12:08):
who are interested in working on this project. And we
have paid positions to help us with the research project.
So we're looking for students who want internships, We're looking
for retired individuals. We have time to look into this.
Of course, we're looking for everybody whoever wants to be
a part of this. Any black person who's really serious
about making this taking their claim and standing in the
(12:28):
place of their ancestors, we can find a way. We're
looking for ways to make sure each individual can make
that claim. We really want to push this argument as
far as we can and we really believe the average
black person will get magnetized by this idea. We already
tested it. People get excited about this, so we want
to keep that excitement building. We're going to make it happen, Vanessa,
and no one can stop us. So we're looking for
(12:50):
all the support we can get.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Excellent Ed Sargent, author and investigative journalist, Keep digging, Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Thank you for the opportunity. We have a great day.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Join me next Friday for a brand new episode of
black Land. Like and subscribe and get it wherever you
get your podcasts.
Host
Vanessa Tyler
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